Present Over Perfect: Part 4

Part 4 covers many topics, including how God loves us unconditionally, the beauty of baptism, taking ownership of your life, and living a God-forward life. I hope you enjoy the following post and find the time on your happy and healthy adventure to read this wonderful book. 🙂 ❤

“God who says, “We’ve got this, we’ll do it together. Your failure doesn’t rattle me. Your limitations don’t bother me.” But I do now, little by little. Because now when I step out of that boat, I’m starting to see a man with love in his eyes, a man who will rescue and rescue and rescue, and then bring me to safety, despite my faithlessness, despite my failure” (138).

“How much more beautiful is our God when we free him from our own wounds and tired narratives” (139).

“This is my “burn it down” story, essentially. What I’m burning own are the expectations I’ve long held for who I hd to be, what people heeded me to be, and the distance those expectations created between God and me, and between the people I love and me, and between the beauty of the world and me” (140).

“Instead, around every corner I’m finding that willingness to be fragile actually makes me strong” (143).

“In the silence, I have found love. I have found love, and peace, and stillness, and gratitude” (143).

“They’re beautiful because of that, because they’ve been created over time, in love and sickness and moments of courage and moments of terror” (145).

“Because these days I author my own pace and life, and I celebrate alongside people who do the same” (150).

“I know that sometimes the darkest parts of us can be our teachers in ways that our sweeter qualities never could” (150).

“Love invites whole selves and whole stories out into the light” (151).

“I’m learning to silence the noise around me and within me, and let myself by seen and loved, not for what I produce, but for the fact that I have been created by the hands of a holy God, like every other thing on this earth, equally loved, equally seen” (156).

“Management, organization, speaking and traveling: you must ask not only what fruit the bring to the world, but what fruit they yield on the inside of your life and your heart” (157).

“I know that I am responsible for stewarding my own life, my desires and limitations, my capacities and longings” (160).

“That’s what I have to give, and that small stream is mine to nurture, to tend, to offer first to the people I love most, my first honor and responsibility” (160).

“It has been tremendously helpful to think of myself as a part of the kingdom, a part of the church-I am not building the kingdom…” (160).

“It is for Jesus. More important, it is with Jesus” (162).

“There are things you cannot get back, things that God has not asked you to sacrifice” (163).

“But when you start to understand how strong you are, you realize that you don’t need a shell at all. The inside is strong and secure, and doesn’t need to be shielded by all those other things-performance, proving, busyness. There is nothing left to be shed, and the center is strength, gratitude, Jesus” (166).

“So maybe there isn’t wrong on this one, so long as it’s yielding a God-ward heart. And at the end of it all, at the center of it all, that’s the whole of who I am: this God-ward heart” (168).